Stephen Hawking: 'There Was Nothing Around Before the Big Bang'

British scientist Stephen Hawking attends the launch of The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at the University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, eastern England, on October 19, 2016. (Niklas Halle'n/AFP/Getty Images)

The famous physicist appeared on Neil deGrasse Tyson's National Geographic show "StarTalk" when he made the comments during a conversation about space, the newspaper said. Hawking's work on the origins and structure of the universe, from the Big Bang to black holes, has revolutionized the field, Space.com wrote.

"(I use a) Euclidean approach to quantum gravity to describe the beginning of the universe," Hawking said on the program about the Big Bang, which he believes happened nearly 14 billion years ago, per USA Today.

"The Euclidean space-time is a closed surface without end, like the surface of the Earth," Hawking continued. "One can regard imaginary and real time as beginning at the South Pole, which is a smooth point of space-time where the normal laws of physics hold. There is nothing south of the South Pole so there was nothing around before the Big Bang."

The Tech Times wrote that much of what is known about the Big Bang comes from mathematical models and formulas since present instruments do not allow researchers to look back at the birth of the universe.

Some on social media had another answer about the universe's origins.

Same.
“And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep& the Spirit of God was moving over the waters. Then God said, ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT’; AND THERE WAS LIGHT.” Genesis 1:2-3